


The Things That Matter

by Liberte_Egalite_Broadway



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil Palmer's Fashion Sense, Fluff, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Wedding Rings, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 02:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway/pseuds/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway
Summary: Carlos isn’t sure what engagement customs are like in Night Vale, so he asks Janice on one of the weekends while she’s over at their house.“Oh, it’s just like everywhere else, I think, just a ring, and you go down on one knee, and - OH MY GOD UNCLE CARLOS ARE YOU GOING TO PROPOSE TO UNCLE CECIL?”





	The Things That Matter

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this on Tumblr, figured some people might enjoy it over here. 
> 
> TW for language and references to typical Night Vale violence.

Carlos isn’t sure what engagement customs are like in Night Vale, so he asks Janice on one of the weekends while she’s over at their house. 

“Oh, it’s just like everywhere else, I think, just a ring, and you go down on one knee, and - OH MY GOD UNCLE CARLOS ARE YOU GOING TO PROPOSE TO UNCLE CECIL?”

“Shh!” Carlos exclaims, glancing back through the screen door from the porch. Cecil is in the kitchen, making dinner, with his cat-ear headphones on; judging from how he’s dancing, his music is probably turned up too loud to hear. He’s so cute. 

“Sorry!” Janice leans closer, conspiratorially. Her eyes glitter. “But wait, are you? Are you going to propose to Uncle Cecil?!”

“Yes.”

Janice shrieks, wheels her chair forward to where he’s sitting, and throws her arms around his waist. “Oh my god! Oh my _god_, Uncle Carlos!!!! I’m so excited! Have you bought a ring yet? Have you decided when you’re gonna ask him?”

“Not yet.” Carlos glances back into the house. Cecil is spinning around to whatever music it is he’s got on; his pink fishnet skirt swishes over distressed neon yellow tights. When he sees Carlos he grins and then goes back to dancing. “I want everything to be perfect, you know? And I know, scientifically speaking, nothing can ever be perfect, because life has so many variables, and so by that logic no engagement ring can be perfect, because engagement rings are made out of metal and minerals and honestly? Minerals are very unpredictable, as elements go. But I would like it to be almost perfect.” 

Janice nods understandingly. “Well, maybe I could help you. He’s covering the morning show tomorrow, right? We can tell him you’re taking the day off work to bring me to the mall. We can say I need new sports gear” 

“You didn’t mention that you wanted new sports gear.”

“No, I’m sorry. That would be our ruse. We’d really be going to buy a ring.” 

“Oh!” Carlos nods. “Yes, okay, that makes sense.” 

And they do their niece/uncle secret handshake, the one they’ve been perfecting for months now, even though, scientifically speaking, nothing can ever be perfect. 

The Night Vale Mall has three fine jewelry shops: Jared’s, Kay’s, and Renaldo’s. The owner of Jared’s, who is named Yuzuki, shows them fifteen different rings, but Janice shakes her head at all of them. “These are too plain,” she says as she wheels aggressively through the aisles of display cases. “Uncle Cecil is_ not_ plain.” 

“He’s really not,” Carlos agrees. Just this morning Cecil left for work in a black jumpsuit, white pinstripe pattern belt, and matching green beret and combat boots, with rainbow lipstick. “This is _fashion_, honey,” he’d said. 

The owner of Kay’s, who is named Paul, offers Janice and Carlos a suspicious looking red drink from a vial. It turns out that the Kay’s had been renovated so that it was now a meeting place for a new blood cult. 

They finally find a ring at Renaldo’s, where the owner, Katherine, suggests a specialty cut diamond shaped like a beaker. “Because that’s your thing, right?” they smiles. “You’re a scientist? I listen to your boyfriend’s show every day. This one is somewhat expensive, though.” 

“That’s okay,” says Carlos. 

“Money is no object,” adds Janice. 

“Well, technically, money is an object, because in its physical form money is formed out of matter, and matter is -”

“Do you want to add engraving, Uncle Carlos?” Janice suggests, throwing him off of his scientific explanation. He decided that yes, he did want engraving. 

Katherine designs a prototype on their computer and shows it to the two, saying that the ring would be ready to pick up in two weeks. Carlos watches nervously as Janice snaps a picture. “Doesn’t Cecil follow your Instagram?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m posting this on my Finsta.”

“Your what?”

“My Finsta. You know, you have your Rinsta, which is your normal account, and then you have your Finsta, which is your more secret one for friends, and then you have your Ginsta, where you post visual sacrifices to the various gods.” 

“Oh.” He’s still not sure, but she assures him that Cecil won’t see the picture. She captions it, “Took my uncle shopping”, with the wedding ring emoji, the winky face emoji, and then the radio star emoji, which is a gravestone that reads “killed by video”. 

Cecil may not have seen the picture, but by the end of the week it seems like everyone else in town has. When he buys coffee in the morning, the barista winks and asks, “Sooo, any updates yet?” and pumps her eyebrows in rhythm with pumping syrup into his latte. When they go for walks, he notices people concealed in the bushes with binoculars looking at Cecil’s left hand. In the middle of the night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, there’s a note taped to the front of his shower curtain written in blood that reads, “Hey, if you’re looking for a romantic place to propose, I’ll give you a 15% discount. -Gino.” 

As always, though, Cecil seems totally oblivious. “Hey, look at that!” he says, pointing to the sky where a secret police plane has written, “PROPOSE TO HIM ALREADY”. “Sheriff Sam is trying to help someone propose! Aw, that’s so sweet. Sam always has our town’s best interests at heart, huh?”

“They sure do,” says Carlos, sweating.

The town continues to drop hints - dropping them on his front lawn, out of the sky when he goes outside, and one day one falls from the ceiling and lands on his head while he’s braiding his hair. “I get it, Faceless Old Woman,” Carlos grumbles. “The ring hasn’t come in yet.” 

“I am eager to attend your wedding,” hisses a voice from the shadows. “I will steal an exceptional bottle of wine for you as a gift.” 

Finally, finally, he gets a text that the ring has come in to Renaldo’s for him to pick up. He’s not quite sure how he’s going to propose, but he thinks that once he has the ring, some inspiration might strike him. 

Cecil’s show starts at four o’clock. He’s anxious about the broadcast today, since developments with the most recent town-threatening entity have been escalating. “It’s important that I update the town,” he says. 

“It’s also important that you keep yourself safe,” Carlos tells him as he fixes the crooked bow tie around Cecil’s neck. It has a pattern of slices of pizza dancing with french fries. “I want you home tonight. Please don’t get hurt.” 

“I’ll be careful, bunny. I always am.” 

_You never are,_ Carlos thinks, but he just says, “Okay, babe. I love you.” He kisses Cecil’s forehead. 

He drives over to pick up the ring. It comes in a little velvet box that fits perfectly into the pocket of his labcoat. He chooses purple for the box color - it’s Cecil’s favorite. The ring looks even better in person than it did on the model, with the fractal diamonds glinting in light. He admires it for a moment before snapping the box shut and sliding it into his pocket. “It’s perfect,” he tells Katharine. “Thanks so much.”

“Best of luck!” they exclaim. 

He doesn’t think he’s going to propose tonight, but just in case, he goes home early and makes a nice dinner. Time passes as time always passes in Night Vale - slowly and quickly and strangely. He finishes dinner, but since he’s not sure when Cecil’s going to be home, he turns on the radio to see where he is in the broadcast. 

There’s nothing. Just static. 

Panic wells in his throat. He rushes to the counter and yanks his phone off the charger, goes to his contacts list with trembling fingers. Cecil’s number goes straight to voicemail. He tries the radio station’s phone number, and that goes through, but all he hears on the other side are dull crashes and distant roaring. 

“Cecil? Cecil, are you there? Cecil!”

Nothing.

He’s shaking now, trembling from head to foot, and he knows he can’t drive in this state, but he’s rushing to the door anyway, grabbing his labcoat off the back of the chair. Cecil has to be okay, he has to be, he -

The door flies open from the other side and Cecil stumbles in. He’s covered in dust, his bowtie is askew, and there’s a reddish-brown stain along his bare side under his crop top. Which is soaked in that same color. 

“Sweetie!” Carlos shrieks. He grabs Cecil in his arms fretting over the injury. “How are you hurt? Oh no, where did I put the rubbing alcohol? Are you hurt somewhere else?” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Cecil catches Carlos’s face. “Honey. Carlos. Breathe, you’re hyperventilating.” 

“I was - I was so worried about you -” Carlos sobs and hugs Cecil tight. “_Fuck_, Cece, don’t ever do that again!”

“I’m sorry!” Cecil hugs him back. “This isn’t blood. We had a false alarm on that recent threat and Station Management came out of their office. I spilled my strawberry-banana-spinach-passionfruit-cherry smoothie in fear, though.” 

“Oh my god.” Carlos buries his face in Cecil’s neck. “What would I do without you?” Many people, in this case, would say “What am I going to do with you?” and say this in a subtle way of not communicating what they are actually trying to communicate - which is that they do not want to be without the other person. Carlos doesn’t like indirect communication, so he says, “What would I do without you?” 

“Well, you’ll never have to be without me! Oh, and Carlos?” Cecil pulls back from the hug a little. “Do you think we can get the smoothie out of my crop top?” 

Carlos laughs. A small sob comes out, too, one that was in the back of his throat. “Yes, baby, I think we can get the smoothie out of your crop top.” 

Those first few words stick in his head, though. _You’ll never have to be without me. _

He can feel the weight of engagement ring in his pocket. He thinks he might be taking it out of that pocket soon. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow my tumblr: this-is-a-podcast-fanblog.tumblr.com


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